Ballos
Ballos is the hidden ultimate antagonist of the game, met during one of the difficult endings. How to encounter To encounter him, characters must have collected the Booster V 2.0, the Iron Bond, and Ma Pignon. Professor Booster must be ignored in the Labyrinth, and Curly Brace must be rescued after she drowns by bringing her to Waterway Cabin and then restoring her memories, to receive the Iron Bond from her. Background Ballos is the actual cause of the Demon Crown. His niece (his sister Jenka's daughter) Misery made him create it. Unfortunately, she was quite rude and harshly demanding. Due to this, Ballos cursed and doomed her (and also Balrog but we don't know how he got into this mess) to obey the one who wears it. In the Nicalis translation, Balrog refers to Jenka as "Auntie," thus implying that Balrog may be Ballos' son. Ballos originally had a very peaceful life in a kingdom many years ago. He helped many people, who loved him in return. Unfortunately the king was extremely jealous of Ballos, and captured him and tortured him nonstop until his powers were impossible to control. Ballos swallowed the entire kingdom in flames. He sadly killed his son and wife. Jenka, Ballos' sister, sealed him in the Seal Chamber in the floating island in the sky. For Jenka, killing her younger brother would be impossible. Gameplay If the player is able to collect and do all of the stuff stated above, they will have to go through the Blood-Stained Sanctuary. There is no time limit. After Quote and Curly make it through the end of the Sanctuary, they must fight the Heavy Press in order to progress. Once defeated, it falls to the ground (Make sure you are not under it as it falls, as this is a guaranteed one-hit KO) and into the "Passage?" area. This area will be quite familiar to you if you entered here much eariler via the Plantation. Unfortunately, the door to the Plantation is busted shut and you can't open it at all. On the right side, though, you are able to enter the Statue Chamber, and the statue carver has left somewhere so feel free to destroy the statues of the previous Demon Crown wearers. When they are destroyed, they all drop power-ups. Before you do so, you may read the Doctor's statue and learn his name! Once you're finished, head down into the door which you were previously unable to enter, in the bottom right corner. You're now in the "Corridor." Walk a bit further and you'll see a magic or ghost dog. He tells you the only way to stop chaos on the island is to kill his master, Ballos. He claims Ballos is a man who cannot die and has powers way too powerful for even him to control. The dog then disappears, and you can then enter the door to the Seal Chamber. Ballos strangely welcomes you to his home. He tells you about his life and torture, and he then tells you he has waited long for this, for somebody to end his rage of doom, ending his lecture with, "Now, kill me! Or... I WILL KILL YOU!" After that, the true final battle starts. Ballos can be a pretty tough opponent if it's your first time playing through, but once you know all his attacks and tricks, he's not really that hard. Phase 1 Ballos will immediately start off by charging at you repeatebly very fast and slams onto the ground, making bones jump out. If he's still alive after awhile, he'll cast lighting magic at you (there are target warnings for this so when you see one, move QUICKLY). Your best weapon of choice here would most likely be the Nemesis, as there is no source of weapon energy during this fight. Spur and Snake are also solid choices, as they have decent range as well as good damage output. The Blade should be avoided, no matter how good an idea it might seem, as it has a poor range and getting near him is risky because he moves so fast. Attack Pattern 1: Lunges at you horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally again, then vertically again. If he is going downwards on his final lunge, bones will roll along the ground in an easy-to-dodge shockwave doing 8 damage. If he's going up, bones will rain from the sky instead. He does this four times. Touching him while he's lunging does 10 damage; touching him while he's standing still does 3 damage. This stage is where you'll damage him the most. It's possible to kill him before this stage finishes. 2: Flies up into the air, hovers for a bit, and then sends six bolts of lightning at you. They're easy to dodge, but they don't give you much warning and they do 10 damage. You can damage him while he's hovering before he fires; there's a good five seconds there at least. 3: Sends a wave of several lightning bolts at you. These are easier to dodge. Phase 2 After Ballos takes enough damage, he charges straight for the ceiling (green devils also suddenly appear). He'll then crash down to the ground, transformed into a gigantic boulder-like creature. You kill him by attacking his eyes. This is most likely the easiest form to fight as long as you have the Spur. Charge up your Spur to MAX and when Ballos pauses, release the Spur shot right in the eye. If you did it right, then Ballos will take severe damage. Killing him without it takes much longer, giving you more time to make mistakes and take damage. In this phase, Ballos doesn't cause any contact damage; You could stand on him all day if you want to, but when he jumps up, you might get knocked off by the Green Devils. Note that both this form and Ballos' final form have an extreme weakness to missiles. By quickly jumping during one of his pauses and standing next to his eye, it is possible to take over half of his life by simply pressing the fire button with the Lv. 3 Super Missile Launcher repeatedly. Just be sure to conserve them for the following forms. If you don't want to use missiles, or you don't have enough missles to kick off Ballos's last 2 forms, when Ballos pauses, boost up and stand right next to Ballos' eyes. It doesn't matter which eye you stand on, but once you get in that position, spam the Lvl. 1 Nemesis on Ballos. If you are a fast button presser, you can deal well over 200 damage to Ballos. You can also spam the level 2 Blade, but it won't work as well. Attack Pattern There's a moment just after the boss battle starts where he's damageable but isn't moving yet. Perfect time for a charged Spur shot. 1: He jumps upwards at you. When he lands, he sends out a wave of bones similar to the 1st phase. If he lands on you, he does 16 damage, so avoid that. 2: After the every third jump, he pauses, enabling you to jump on next to his eye (white or red; it doesn't matter), and send out a fully charged Spur shot, which damages both eyes. Unless you're very fast and accurate with the booster, you should probably only try to attack him at these times. Phase 3 Ballos will then sprout out many eyes for protection against your attacks. Shoot them to make them all close up their eyes, rendering them invincible. Ballos moves around the walls and ceiling, dropping down skulls. The main body does no contact damage, but the eyes do 14 damage, so you'll need to try extra hard to avoid them. The Spur and Super Missles are solid choices for this phase, but try to conserve some missles for Ballos' last form. Phase 4 After all of the eyeballs are shut, spinning platforms will appear. Jump on them quickly; the floor is now growing deadly spikes! Ballos then shows off a very gruesome form. The eyes will still prevent you from making much damage to him. You can shoot off four of them but you'd best be careful; they'll be bouncing all over the room! The eyes that are still circling around Ballos will deal 10 damage, and the eyes that bounce across the room deal 5. While you're whittling off Ballos' HP, a whole bunch of red-faced Butes will appear on both sides of the Seal Chamber. They have both the abilites of the typical flying Bute that tries to dive-bomb you, and the archer Bute that fires arrows. One common speedrunning trick that most people do is take damage from the spikes (Before Ballos cracks open and begins the final phase) with a non-Super Missles weapon, then boost up and onto Ballos's eye, unharmed by the invincibility buffer. Afterwards, the moment Ballos begins his last phase (When you hear a loud noise and Ballos cracks open) spam the Lvl. 3 Super Missles right in Ballos's eye. You only need 12 ammo in order to do this fully, and Ballos will be gone before you know it. If not, ignore everything else, stand underneath him regardless of the spikes and eyes, and blast whatever you like as fast as you can up at him. The spikes deal tiny damage, 2, to be exact, so as long as you have enough HP to withstand in the spikes, do that. If you don't like taking damage from the spikes, or if you don't have sufficent HP, stand on the moving platforms and attack Ballos from there. If you have the Lvl 3 Blade after all this trouble, you can use it on Ballos and if will deal good damage to Ballos and the eyes. However, arrows from the Butes and the bouncing eyes pose a threat because even the slightest hit will de-level the Blade. One other thing, use your Life Pot here if you haven't yet. If you used it during the fight with the Undead Core, it's gonna be much harder. Epilogue Spoiler Alert: Once Ballos is defeated, the Nikumaru Counter stops and the player hears the words of Ballos' pain ( "''HOT... HOT... CAN'T BREATHE... SO PAINFUL... HOT... IT HURTS...) T''he walls converge on Quote and Curly as a last resort. Then Balrog jumps in to save the two robots, and smashes his way through the ceiling as the walls come together. Quote, Curly, and Balrog decide to live in a peaceful place with a view, and the credits roll as Balrog flies them there. Category:Characters Category:Enemies Category:Males Category:Witches Category:Deceased Category:Bosses